The actual adventures of Michael Hickins

Baseball, Burgers, and Biere

I recently finished the first draft of a book about my experiences in France managing baseball teams and running an American restaurant. It’s all true — and I decided to write this book because every time I meet new people and they ask about my past, they seem fascinated — you ran an actual business in France? (answer: yes). There’s baseball in France? (answer: yes) Are they any good? (answer: not very)

It’s been challenging deciding what to leave out — how much should I dwell on having children in France, on being the father of dual-cultural kids, on past, failed, relationships, and on my other principal activity — writing?

How much did writing have to do with our decision to ultimately leave France? How much did bringing up a young woman in a place that seemed so unkind to young women have to do with it (an ironic thought given that we are now in the era of Trump)?

There’s surprisingly a lot of action in the book — raids by the immigration police, private orgies in public places, politics, lawsuits, and of course, home runs.

The manuscript has been read by a couple of people whose judgement I trust, and they agree it’s got great commercial potential and literary value. (Not to mention that I can imagine a movie with James Franco in the role of the protagonist, moi.

I don’t have a literary agent at this point, so there’s that mountain to climb. I’m not in a rush, though — there’s a second edit yet to be done.